German master of synthetic animal sculpture, between the academicism of Begas and the research of Hildebrand, recognised precursor of François Pompon.

August Gaul was born on 22 October 1869 in Großauheim, near Hanau, into a family of stonemasons, a training that would lastingly mark his relationship with material and form. He began his apprenticeship under a goldsmith while following drawing classes at the Hanau School of Applied Arts, before continuing his studies in Berlin at the School of Arts and Crafts, then at the School of Fine Arts.

Between 1894 and 1899, he worked as a practitioner in the studio of sculptor Reinhold Begas, a major figure of official Wilhelmine German sculpture, participating notably in the modelling of the lions of the Monument to Wilhelm I. In 1897, he received the Rome Prize of the Berlin Academy, which allowed him to stay in Italy, where he met Louis Tuaillon and absorbed the theoretical ideas emerging from Adolf von Hildebrand’s circle.

On his return, Gaul gradually distanced himself from academic naturalism to develop a personal language based on the simplification of volumes and the search for an essential form. In 1899, he exhibited his lions at the Berlin Secession exhibition, of which he became a member in 1902. His approach consisted of synthesising the characteristic attitudes and volumes of the animal, generally shown at rest, to express its permanence rather than anecdote.

Alongside his intimate-scale sculptures, he produced several monumental ensembles and fountains: a swan fountain in Krefeld, a bison fountain in Königsberg, and the duck fountain in front of the Renaissance-Theater in Berlin, created in 1911. Original figures from this ensemble are today preserved at the Giersch Museum of Goethe University in Frankfurt. August Gaul died in Berlin in 1921.